Batman Retribution
by Thor2000
Summary: In the Batman TV Series, Batgirl is kidnapped and when she wakes up, twenty years have passed and she has a son and daughter she doesn’t know. Is she really in the future and just who is the Green Goblin terrorizing Gotham?


Young, brunette and pretty, Barbara Gordon said hello to one of her father's men as she entered police headquarters, fumbled with her purse as she strided down the hall and caught the elevator. A few lady officers also acknowledged her as they passed greetings. Barbara was a frequent civilian visitor here as she head to her father's fourth floor office.

"Hi, daddy," She still acted like a little girl in his presence. The proud white-haired visage of her father the commissioner was not alone. His police chief, James 0'Hara was present as was the caped crusader himself. A deputized special agent of the police, Batman turned his head to Barbara as they pondered a wooden staff with a steel point. Batman's partner, Robin, seemed to check out Barbara as she came close.

"What's going on?" Barbara asked.

"Someone hurled this in through the window." Gordon admitted. "Along with this."

"Catch me if you can?" Barbara read the note.

"What a riddle!" Robin pounded his fist into his other hand. "And the Riddler's still in Gotham City Penitentiary."

"Along with the Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and all the rest," O'Hara added. "They've all got markings on this."

"Their names and their symbols in a roll." Batman pointed out. "But someone tossed it. The question is who?"

"Is Warden Crichton sure?" Barbara asked. It wasn't unusual for her to get involved with cases like this. "Could someone have escaped?"

"We checked them all!" O'Hara insisted.

"Mr. Freeze, Riddler, Penguin, Egghead..." Batman read out the names on  
the wooden rod.

"Maybe there's a clue in the way their names are spread out." Barbara saw the names were unevenly wrapped around the handle.

"That's it!" Batman snapped to attention in his zest to solve the mystery. "They've been lined up so the names will make a clue. F-I-N-E-A..."

"The Fine Arts Lady League!" Robin exclaimed. "It's full of all the most wealthy and affluent ladies of Gotham City's most wealthy families. They're together today to choose a charity for the Gotham City Charity Benefit being held by Bruce Wayne! Those ladies would be easy mark for some lowly crook!"

"Well done, Robin!" Batman handed the staff to Gordon. "Quick to the Batmobile!" They rushed out with their capes waving behind them as Barbara watched eager to join and observe them in action.

"O'Hara," Her father handed the staff to his Police Chief. "Put this in the evidence locker." He turned to his daughter. "And you, young lady. We have a lunch date."

"Oh, well, that's just it, daddy," Barbara heard the roar of the Batmobile take off outside. "I came by to cancel. Something came up and I've just got enough time to make my appointment. I will make dinner for you tonight." She grinned with a glint of the proud daughter in her eye.

"Of course," Gordon kissed his only child. "You make your appointment. I'll see you tonight at...seven?"

"Perfect." She kissed him good-bye and rushed off herself. Her apartment was only two blocks away and if she hurried, she might just make it!

PART TWO

Barbara rushed back to her apartment with a brief hello to her bird Charlie. Rather than spin the wall and further irk the curiosity of her downstairs neighbors, she stepped into the hidden closet behind her bedroom wall and went straight for her Batgirl costume. Jokes about women taking forever to change aside, she was properly attired and soon off on her cycle to meet new adventures. Her father might have had a heart attack if he knew she was really Batgirl, and there was a few close calls over the years, but there was no other role or persona where she felt so out-going and extroverted than as the female caped crusader.

Mrs. Harriet Cooper, the aunt of young Dick Grayson, ward of millionaire socialite Bruce Wayne, headed the Gotham City Fine Art Ladies League. All their meetings were at the Wayne Estate far out atop the hills overlooking Gotham City. It was a long drive over ten miles out of town as Batgirl parked her cycle behind the bushes at the end of the long driveway and sprinted the rest of the way. The Batmobile was already on site as she heard voices from the Wayne Study. Batman was speaking to Alfred the manservant as Robin watched the Ladies League from a far. Nothing had happened so far. Wondering where Wayne and Grayson was, Batgirl scaled the ivy outside the mansion and slipped in through a window.

"You're not leaving me out, are you?" She announced herself.

"Holy entrance!" Robin looked back. "Batgirl!"

"I was wondering when you'd show up." Batman peered out from his cowl as Alfred turned out of the room. "Things look as if they're going smoothly."

"Could it be a false alarm?" Batgirl asked as Robin lent him his binoculars.

"Probably." Robin admitted. "But we don't take chances."

"One of those caterers is talking into a walkie-talkie." Batgirl observed. Seconds later, there was screaming from the Ladies League meeting down in the garden. "The caterers are pulling out guns and robbing them!"

"Holy turncoats!"

"Quick to the garden!" Batman led the way through the house. Robin and Batgirl were coming up behind as they jumped into the fray. Batman knocked the gun out of the hands of one of the criminal caterers as Robin went one on one with another. Batgirl kicked another figure in a white jacket as he swung at her then swung around and knocked him off his feet.

WHAM! Robin leapt over a table, grabbed the microphone stand and used it to disarm his opponents.

OOOOFF! Batman escorted Mrs. Cooper and her colleagues to safety as one of the phonies swung a chair at him. Grabbing it, he knocked the criminal off his feet, took him by the collar and tossed him to the pool.

SPLASH! Batgirl effortlessly jumped up to hang from the garden trellis and hoped it could hold her long enough as she swung from it to knock one of the would-be thieves to the ground. She spotted one of the criminals grab a bag of loot and dash for the driveway where their van was parked. Opening the back, he scuffled for the loot a minute as Batgirl felt someone else overwhelming her. She smelled chloroform against her face and being pulled into the van as it started up.

Robin looked up as Alfred came out to view the damage. The party was ruined and the garden could be cleaned as eight of the phony caterers were stretched out on the ground. Batman pulled one out of the pool.

"Batman, thank god you're here!" Mrs. Cooper looked up to the crime fighter with heart-felt admiration. "To think they almost got away with it."

"Never fear, Mrs. Cooper." The hero beamed his steely grin. "No crime will go unpunished as I'm on the job."

"Where's Batgirl?" Alfred asked as he looked around. Distant police sirens were coming up the hill.

"She went off after one of the thieves on foot in that direction." Robin carried the bag of loot from the driveway. "They left this behind." Batman started to reflect on the incidents.

"Strange." He bent down as he picked up some loose bills and jewelry on the ground. "They didn't get all the loot. I wonder if they were after something else."

PART THREE

Barbara Gordon gasped as she opened her eyes and looked around. She rubbed her face and realized her mask and costume was gone! Her identity revealed, she realized she had been violated and reclothed in a sweater and jeans. Left sitting before a blaze in the fireplace of a huge main hall in this strange dark structure around her, she looked around and lifted herself up as she crashed to the floor.

Her legs! She couldn't move them! She had been paralyzed from the waist down! Frightened and hysterical, she began crawling across the carpet as she heard someone coming.

"Mom?" The young man set aside a tray and rushed to help her. "Did you fall from your wheelchair?"

"Let me go!" Barbara pushed away from him. "You can't keep me like this! What did you do to me!"

"What are you talking about?" He looked at her with confusion. He exhaled confusingly and lifted her up back into the wheel chair from which she had tumbled. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Who are you? What have you done to me!"

"Mom, don't you know me?" He appeared emotionally hurt. "Are you... you don't remember anything again?"

"Remember what?"

"Your injuries?" He was looking back at her with such trusting brown eyes. "The original Joker pushed you out of a window almost twenty years ago. You haven't been able to walk since."

"What?" Barbara recoiled at the shock. She looked around the room for evidence this was a dream, but it seemed so real. On the near wall, she saw her reflection. She was older, her long dark hair turning white and her face marked by lines and wrinkles. She was an old woman now as the young man who called her mom picked up a tray of food and placed it on the handles of her chair. She took the newspaper and unfolded it to the date.

"Batman Stops New Riddler." The headline read. Under it was the date. "July 12, 2002." She recoiled in shock. She was in the future! Or maybe being made to believe she was. She glared distrustfully at her alleged son.

"I can't handle this anymore, mom." He leaned on the mantel. "Every time you fall asleep you lose more memories. I know you swore to me to never put you in a home, but... I can't give you the care you need. You don't know who I am do you?"

"No, I don't." Barbara looked up at him. "How do I know you didn't kidnap me and aren't trying to pull a hoax!"

"You have to decide that for yourself." He stared at her with such deep sorrow in his face.

"I used to love it when I realized you were the first Batgirl, but now your paranoia is getting worse. I'm going to have to put you in a home."

"What do you mean the first Batgirl?" They both heard the sound of the wall opening up as the nearby clock opened up. A flash of violet and yellow and Barbara recoiled in shock to see someone else wearing her costume. She seemed younger and more vivacious than she ever was. She pulled off the cowl and revealed her curly red hair.

"It was so cool!" The girl was excited. "Fighting side by side with Batman just like you used to, mom. Knocking Catwoman around like a rag doll, finally something to take my anger out on!" She looked at her brother.

"What?"

"I'm putting mom in a home."

"No," The redhead screamed! "You can't do that. Jason, you promised!"

"Her condition is getting worse," Jason argued. "Monica, She doesn't know who we are!"

"No!" Monica turned to Barbara and hugged and kissed her. "You know me, don't you, mom? You didn't forget me? Remember little pooh-bear, how you stayed up to sew his eyes on after Jason cut them off. How when I was little you'd sing me to sleep? Dad? Do you remember dad? How you cried when he passed away? You..."

"Please, please..." Barbara turned away a minute. Monica looked almost just like her. They had the same blue eyes, and the girl had dark roots from dying her air red. She could be her daughter. Barbara gasped as a regretful tear fell from her eye. If this was a hoax, it was the most elaborate and most emotional.

"Please, " Barbara looked around. "Give me a minute to think." She looked back the paper and the date. Another look at her reflection in the mirror and then her daughter in her costume, she began to slowly and very hesitantly believe it.

PART FOUR

Barbara was suddenly shown a family album with herself as a mom and devoted wife. Her late husband, whoever he was, was Dr. Benjamin Pryde, the doctor who had pulled the first bullet out of her as Batgirl and had allegedly realized her identity when he recognized the wound in Barbara. He and Jason looked very much alike.

"That's your father?" Barbara was still slow to accept the new reality.

"Yep, he loved you very much." Monica had changed clothes now.

"And he knew I was Batgirl?"

"Yeah," Jason ate his dinner quietly. "I think he always got mad when you got grandpa to baby-sit us so you could run off and fight with Batman. I suspect that that he was also a little happy when the Joker ended your crime fighting."

"Grandfather..." Barbara looked up. "How is..." She noticed the looks in Jason and Monica. They stared at each other in secret.

"Never mind." She recanted. "I couldn't expect him to still be alive."

"I remember when he discovered the truth." Monica poked at her mashed potatoes. "So mad and proud at the same time, a thousand questions..."

"Yeah," Jason grinned. "Like, how did you get out of the Penguin's tank?"

"Or the Riddler's trap." Monica added as Barbara giggled.

"Just dumb luck..." The would-be mother felt she was with friends than her own children. "And Batman in the nick of time... Batman's still around?"

"I think so..." Jason swallowed his food. "But I've always felt that Robin took over the role and got a new partner to be another Robin. Can't be sure though."

Barbara listened as she glanced across the table at her alleged children. Jason was so serious and Monica was so exuberant. They seemed like the model kids she wanted.

"One thing I could never figure out." Jason waved his fork like a pointer as he continued.

"The 1968 Gotham City Charity Benefit. It was held in the Grand Ball Room down from the City Hall. Why did it take you so long to get there and stop the Joker?"

"It wasn't held there." Barbara admitted. "It was at Wayne Manor. Bruce Wayne was keeping it a secret to keep the money from being stolen. How'd the Joker find out about it?"

"Your guess is as good as anyone's." Jason sent a secret glance to his sister. He stood and began collecting the dishes. "Well, I'm tired and want these dishes done. Monica, why don't you take mom to bed?"

"Okay," Monica wiped her lips in her napkin and stood to roll her mother to the elevator for the second floor. Jason grinned clandestinely and collected the dishes in one stack and headed to the kitchen. He loaded the dishwasher and switched it on as he smirked and wandered to the cellar door. Other business in mind, he wandered down into the dark cavernous basement of the mansion and passed between support beams to an alcove where a hideous mask was propped up to eye-level. Green with pointed ears and a long nose, it was rather grotesque like some sort of gargoyle as his sneaky conniving laugh swelled into a psychotic shrill squeal.

"Mommy dearest is in bed," Monica came down a long hall from another part of the basement. "She wanted to do it herself. God, I was so scared she'd spot the doctored photos. How'd you know she was Batgirl?"

"I didn't." Jason grabbed her and kissed her. "I needed both Gordon and Batgirl in my corner for this plan to work and now we know where the charity benefit is! Knowing she is Batgirl was just the right unexpected ingredient to pull this hoax off and convince her we were her kids, and baby, you're almost as good enough an actor as I am. I'm am going to dress you in minks and feed you lobster for years!"

"Well," Monica kissed her husband. "I think I'm having second thoughts. She seems so trusting..."

"What?" Jason grabbed his wife's long red hair and pulled her head backward sharply. "I have been plotting and planning and setting this up for months!"

"You're hurting me." Monica whined as she winced from the pain.

"I'm sorry, princess." Jason let go as he became loving again. "But I love you so much! And for this plan to work, it has to go off with split-level timing. The dummy paper, the phony photos, everything..."

"How long will that stuff you injected into her keep her from using her legs ?" Monica looked back.

"Eighteen more hours."

"And then what?"

"A date with Davy Jones at sea." Jason chuckled. "And I don't mean the Monkee..." He began laughing sadistically.

PART FIVE

"It doesn't make sense." Commissioner Gordon explained to the Caped Crusader. "It's just not like Barbara to vanish. She hasn't been home for two days or reported to work. I'm... beside myself."

"Could she have been kidnapped?" Robin asked out loud.

"No," Batman reacted very deep in thought. "Kidnappers would have called by now. Something has happened we may have missed."

"Could it have something to do with the ordeal at Wayne Manor the other day?" Chief O'Hara wondered as he paced the room.

"Barbara was no where near that." Commissioner Gordon revealed.

"Correct!" Batman pointed out as he whirled backward. "And there was something about that attempted robbery that has always bothered me. It was laid out perfectly and set up too easily for us to capture the thieves."

"A distraction!" Robin overzealously followed the deduction. "To keep us busy as Barbara was kidnapped elsewhere!"

"Exactly my proposal!" Batman applauded his partner. "Good thinking!"

"O'Hara," Gordon leaned across his desk. "Those phony caterers? Still locked up?"

"No, sir," O'Hara looked back with a look of worry and passed his hand over the front of his uniform. "They all made bail the following morning."

"Track them down for questioning!" Gordon's phone buzzed on his desk. "I want my daughter found! Yes, Bonnie..." He listened to his receptionist.

"O'Hara," Batman turned to the Police Chief. "Do you have a list of the thieves' names?"

"Yes," O'Hara answered. "Right here, I just brought them up."

"Let me have a copy of them." Batman passed a glimpse to Robin. "The Bat-computer might be able to tell me something else about them."

"Sure thing, Caped Crusader."

"O'Hara, I have something else for you." Gordon hung up his phone. "Bruce Wayne's butler called to report some prowlers around one of Wayne's properties. Send some men to check it out."

"Yes, sir." O'Hara didn't notice a sly look between Batman and Robin.

"Allow me," Batman took the address. "O'Hara, you have enough work. Let us handle this."

"For a petty trespassing?"

"I'm not that busy." Batman forced a grin. "To the Batmobile!" He and his partner rushed out. O'Hara and Gordon shared a glance at being lucky to have such humble and tireless crime fighters working with them.

The address was the Old Velasco House. Built in 1908, Bruce Wayne's father had acquired the two-story structure in 1937. The spooky house was a reputed haunted house to many of the naives of Gotham City because of its unkempt yards and almost Gothic architecture. Robin thought he saw a white figure looking down from a window as they approached.

"Holy spooks..." He replied lackluster. "Why did you want to check this place out? It gives me the creeps."

"You're just remembering the movie stereotype of so-called haunted houses, good chum." Batman pulled out his bat-skeleton key. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"I wish I could say for sure." Robin watched as his mentor pushed open the door. The cold vacuum of cold air greeted them as they immediately noticed the lack of cobwebs. There was a fire in the fireplace and there were candles lit in the main hall. They silently strided in and observed the haunting surroundings.

"Someone's been living here." Batman ran his fingers across a table.

"Batman? Robin?" A voice replied. "You haven't changed!"

They turned around. It was a woman in a wheelchair several feet from them. She wheeled herself out of the shadows for them to see her.

"Who? Barbara Gordon!" Batman took a minute to recognize her under her phony age make-up.

"What are you doing here!"

"I live here with my kids." She replied. "Why do you..."

"Holy time warp!" Robin yelled. "What an incredible hoax!"

"Mrs. Gordon!" Batman knelt to her level. "You have been deceived! What a dastardly and most callous stunt!"

"Hoax?" Barbara's eyes widened. She had been correct all along! It was all a fraud! And her identity revealed all with it! Her eyes filled with tears to think she had been tricked and that her supposed children were criminals. She thought they really loved her!

"Robin, call the Comissioner!" Batman took command. "Get him here with every available car..." Barbara whined in pain as Batman lifted her from her wheelchair. "Mrs. Gordon, what have they done to you!"

Monica Pryde hid behind the banister at the top of the stairs as she listened to every word. She froze where she was not afraid of police but from her husband knowing what he'd do when he found out what happened.

PART SIX

The Gotham City Charity Benefit went on as usual at Wayne Manor, but the major talk was about Barbara Gordon being discovered as she was and being passed off as fifty years old and being convinced those twenty years had passed. The two actors pretending to be her children had not been found or arrested and Commissioner Gordon was keeping a close on his daughter as the drugs that kept her from walking finally wore off. Despite the mysterious events, the socially elite of Gotham City and abroad, some of them coming from as far as Manhattan, still attended and donated their secret amounts of cash to the Fine Art Ladies League's secret charity.

"Horrible story, isn't it, Bruce." Tony Stark looked up to the philanthropist.

"Yes," Bruce sipped some wine as he turned round. "I only really know what the commissioner told me. Imagine that poor girl being fooled and she didn't even know why. They never asked her any questions, they just... persisted in a charade."

"How's she doing?"

"As well as to be expected." Bruce heard a twinge of thunder outside. "It's a shame she doesn't have the resolve of Batman or Robin."

"Bruce?" Radley Crown looked out the large windows to the sunny sky. "What is that?"  
The millionaires and heiresses all looked up as they saw a long smoke trail being left by a small object flying toward the estate. As it came closer, it looked like a small one-man powered jet glider. Riding on top was a demonically grinning green goblin in dark purple attire. They heard his psychotic laughter and then saw two missiles being fired.

"Back from the windows!" Bruce Wayne yelled as the room exploded. It was a small explosion focused just on the windows, but the blast still threw everyone to the floor. Ears ringing, Wayne and his myriad guests looked up as their ghoulish visitor hovered in the middle of the room.

"You didn't invite me!" The fiend laughed sadistically. "So I thought I'd crash!" His laughter became more sadistic as his men charged through the front door. Wearing black body suits and hideous skull helmets, they brandished guns and robbed the guests as the goblin went for the cash donations and dumped them in his bag. That done, he reached into his pouch  
and pulled out a small plastic jack o'lantern.

"Wayne." The Goblin squealed as he twisted the stem. "A gift from a friend!" He tossed it to the back of the room. Dick Grayson ducked in his suit as the explosion again rattled the mansion to its foundation.

"Bruce!" Dick yelled as his guardian rushed to meet him. Three of the goblin's skeleton crew was on their heels as the two of them ducked into the study and locked the doors. There was the sound of furniture being moved as the costumed criminals pounded on the doors.

"Boss, they barricaded the doors!"

"Out of the way you idiots!" The goblin pulled another bomb, twisted the setting and tossed it. Laughing like a maniac as it exploded and blew wide the door, he and his men watched as the smoke cleared a minute. Coming out of it, Batman and Robin came charging!

"It's the winged mouse!" The Goblin laughed and tossed something else. "Meet some friends!"

Several razor-tipped metal bats sliced through the caped crusaders as they slowed. The goblin just laughed harder to see their pain and even danced on the spot as his men robbed the guests.

"Can I join the party?" Batgirl appeared.

"There's always room for more." The goblin added as the dynamic damsel rushed to meet him. Tripping on something, she knocked Batman and Robin to their feet.

"Whoops?" She grinned secretly as the Goblin watched with delight then pranced and leapt like a demonic gremlin out of the way with his booty. Tossing bombs to the top floor and through doors along the way, he laughed sadistically and cajoled like a madman as he raced back to his glider. Batman, Robin and Batgirl were right behind him as he tossed another bomb to them as well as a smoke pellet.

"Don't let him get away!" Batman screamed as the Skeleton Crew stood to defend their leader. Batgirl leapt at one and landed on Robin.

"Holy bloopers!" Robin picked her up. "Batgirl, what's wrong with you?"

"I'm over here!" Another Batgirl appeared and attacked her shocked counterpart. Batman ignored the two of them as he clashed with the Goblin and knocked him off his glider.

WHAP! His punch partially loosened the fiend's mask as the psychotic devil found his vision briefly obscured.

BA-ROOM! Robin kicked two of the Skeleton Crew in the stomachs as one of them grabbed him from behind. Reversing the hold, Robin swung around and caught his captor from behind.

YEE-OW! The two Batgirls were fighting and pulling each other by the hair as one of them revealed her evil nature and popped blades from above the knuckles of her glove. The other Batgirl dashed and darted from the weapons then reached and flipped her imposter over to the floor.

CRASH! The Goblin smacked a chair over Batman's head as the caped crusader slightly wavered. Robin leveled one of the criminal's men and dived for him just as the police charged in and started slapping cuffs on those who were unconscious. Batman kicked out the Goblin's feet as he started to reach for a bomb.

"Give it up, you larcenous fiend!" Batman reached his feet. "It's over!"

"Over?" The costumed criminal poked through his empty pouch. "I had it planned to a fault."

"When Barbara Gordon suddenly remembered disclosing the benefit's location," Batman grinned. "I took a cue from your book and told Bruce Wayne to hire the Police Lunch Kitchen to cater the benefit."

"Jason!" Monica ripped off her Batgirl mask. "I want a divorce!"

"You can't do this to me!" Three officers had to lift, drag and carry her husband as he went nuts. "I'm the Green Goblin! Halloween incarnate!" He pressed his feet to opposite sides of the doorframe as his men were being captured. "I cannot be caught! I am the Green Goblin! I'll be back!" His voice echoed out the front foyer. Monica paused by Batgirl as she was led out.

"I hope we can remain friends." She sounded seriously sincere.

PART SEVEN

The Joker and the Riddler looked up irritatingly from their chess game as they heard the cellblock open up and yet another costumed criminal was led inside to be locked up with them. They heard the screaming and the yelling as the five officers restrained the Goblin and pushed him kicking and screaming to his jail cell. The Penguin peered through the bars of his own cell as their new inmate proved to be more a nut than a criminal mastermind.

"No, I won't go!" Jason Pryde screamed. Still in costume, except for his mask, he wrapped his legs around the bars of the Egghead's cell as the police pulled him off the cage and fought tooth and nail to lock him up in the prison. Once his legs were unwrapped, he bounced off the Catwoman's cage and grabbed the bars on the Archer's cell. As mad as a the Hatter, Pryde's voice became even more cartoonish and even more outlandish as he spread his legs against the doors of his cell and refused to be imprisoned.

"I don't wanna go, you can't make me, I ain't going in." He screamed.

"As looney as a March Hare…" Mr. Freeze stopped reading Robert Frost long enough to peek out the tiny window of his air-conditioned cell. The police guards jerked Pryde back a second and tossed him in hard as they slammed the door. They watched as he jumped up and climbed up the bars as some crazed monkey. Standing on one of the horizontal bars, he let out with one of his loud psychotic laughs as if he were a mad sadistic clown released from a circus of the underworld.

"Shut up in there, and get down from there!" One of the police guards screamed as he fought to catch his breath. Each of the police guards were pressed to their limits and exhausted dragging this lunatic through the prison. All through his arraignment and fingerprinting, the Green Goblin had gone nuts and nearly escaped twice. The other guards finally gasped and relaxed knowing that in the almost two hours since being caught that the Green Goblin was behind bars.

Pryde just continued laughing as he watched the guards leave him. Bouncing off the bars, he landed on his bed and tore it apart. Giggling and laughing at the mess he was making, he began pounding the steel bed to the wall and ripping apart the mattress.

"It was quieter in the women's wing." Catwoman looked up from her cell.

"Shut up!" The Penguin screamed at their new bunkmate. "Joker, is this one of your relatives?"

"Never saw him before in my life!" The Clown Prince of Crime scowled as their new inmate went quiet and began bending one of the mattress springs. Pryde started humming to himself as he reached out the bars with the bent spring and began picking the lock.

"Riddler!" Pryde screamed. "When is a teenage boy like a prison?"

"When he breaks out!" The Riddler began laughing too as the Goblin pushed his door open and passed him his pick and several other bent springs from the trashed mattress. Everyone was cheering and laughing as the Joker sprang out along with the Penguin, Book Worm, Catwoman and everyone else. Pryde had sat on the floor, pulled a blade out of his boot and began sawing at the iron grill in the floor. He passed out other blades as they crowded around the grill and finally removed it. The Goblin sprang first to lead the way then stopped and looked up.

"If you meet a pizza-eating turtle wearing a mask," He giggled. "Kick him in the face!"

PART EIGHT

Two guards loaded a cart with fifteen dinners and wheeled it toward the maximum-security wing of the prison, which held the more deranged and costumed criminals of Gotham City's past. One guard unlocked the cellblock as the other wheeled it inside. The first thing they noticed was the cold air and fog coming through the open door to Mr. Freeze's refrigerated cell and then the fifteen open doors to the formerly occupied cells. It was as empty as a church on Friday.

"Holy crap!" One of them screamed and hit the alarm.

Nine blocks away and well outside the prison, Jason Pryde stuck his head up through the sewer grate in the basement of the abandoned Gotham City Amusement Park Haunted House. Long closed down, the place had been his second home as a kid and a private haunt to store his gear and equipment. Giggling under breath, he pulled himself up as the Riddler popped up behind him followed by the Joker and all the rest.

"Friends, family, gentlemen..." Pryde watched the Catwoman slink out and lusted after her curves. "Lady... equipment to the left, spare costumes to the right, bombs and explosives to the rear." Pryde laughed psychotically as the rest of them. Freeze rushed to charge up his ice rifle stolen from the prison storeroom and the Penguin loaded his umbrella with bullets. The Joker hit the chemicals to mix up the acid for the squirting flower in his lapel.

"You had this planned?" Bookworm and The Mad Hatter watched Pryde loading more pumpkin bombs.

"Always have a contingency plan!" Pryde grinned like a maniac. "This is going to be a bigger jailbreak than Dr. Cassandra could ever pull off! Oh, we are going to run this city into the ground!" Pryde was distracted by someone fighting. He whirled around and saw the original Riddler fighting with his second-rate impersonator.

"Boys, who do we have here?"

"Austin Johns..." Ed Nighma, the original Riddler jerked his green bodysuit from his mustached counterpart. "Bunko artist, he stole my gimmick a while back and tried to drown the caped crusaders in a giant cake!"

"I got a lot closer than you did when you tried to turn them into wax sculptures." Johns was rather Addams-like as he glared back to his predecessor.

"Oh yeah," The Joker scowled at them both. "Well, you both stole my gimmick. Who needs Riddlers when there's a Joker in the deck!" He let loose with one of his long shrill laughs just before the rest of the costumed rogues started fighting as to who was best and who came closest to killing the caped crusaders. Rather than get into it, Pryde rolled his eyes to his spare Goblin mask, made a face as if it were agreeing with him and then picked up a pistol on his workbench.

"Shut up!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. "If there's one thing we don't need, it's two Riddlers!" He fired it into Johns's chest from across the room as Johns flew back and slumped to the floor dead. Pryde contorted his face into a sadistic grin and danced in one spot firing the gun above the heads of all present as he laughed louder and more malevolently as the Joker.

"Something tells me this guy ain't playing with a full deck!" The Penguin turned to the Joker and drew back on his cigarette before cackling his own subdued chuckle under his breathe.

"Hang on to the gun." Catwoman stopped Pryde from pulling on his Goblin mask. "There's a short, black Catwoman I can do without." She kissed him as he smirked indifferently. Pryde grinned at the attention as he hit a switch and opened the door to five more Goblin gliders at his disposal. The ramp to the outside opened up as he fired up his engines.

"Time to go!" He called to the rest as his voice changed. "We have so little time and so many people to kill!" He began laughing as his horde of costumed criminals cheered and charged out with him...

PART NINE

Commissioner Gordon hit the floor as another bomb blew out the floors under his. The streets were full of thieves, looters and costumed criminals as the Green Goblin surveyed the carnage he had started. The Riddler and the Archer were in other gliders as they robbed jewelry stores and flew over the heads of the police. Things were getting bad as every window up the street blew up or shattered from the repercussions.

"Well, is he coming?" O'Hara crawled the floor over to his superior as the police courthouse was bombed, fired upon and used as target practice from missiles.

"That last explosion knocked out the lines." Gordon held up the red phone. "I only hope Bonnie got a call to Metropolis or to Manhattan, maybe even those Avengers."

"Look!"

The grotesque green face of the Green Goblin rose up in the window as if he was on a lift. He looked around giggling with a pumpkin bomb in his hand.

"Grandpa!" His mask moved with his face. "I'm home!" He tossed in the bomb as Gordon and O'Hara crowded behind the desk. The room exploded once more and blew out the windows as the emerald menace flew through one window and out the other cackling and laughing.

The Batmobile charged down the main street at eighty miles an hour as it rushed into town to save the city. Recognizing its jet turbine engine, Mr. Freeze strapped his booty over his shoulder, walked to the middle of the street and aimed his freeze gun point blank at the dynamic duo ready to eliminate them before anyone else. Batman noticed him, hit a switch and turned on the shields of his computerized crime car as the iceman's ray ricocheted back and  
froze the cold villain in his own solid block of ice. The Batmobile roared by as Freeze cursed from within his icy tomb.

"Watch Joker," Egghead noticed the Batmobile as well charging for them and hesitated from the safety of the sidewalk outside the bank. "A flip of the switch..." He turned a dial on what looked like an egg timer.

BOOM! The largest explosion yet blew out under a manhole under the Batmobile and sent it reeling front over end. Flipped over its front end, it crashed upside down from the underground explosion with a mighty crash. Bookworm and the Penguin laughed at the sight and danced a jig at the destruction of the thing. Around them, much of Main Street rioted and tore the town apart. Shooting by overhead, the Goblin tossed a few pumpkin bombs at the underside of the upside down vehicle as more explosions rocked the city.

"Robin!" Batman crawled out relatively unscathed. "Good chum! Are you alright!"

"Holy... liability!" Robin staggered to his feet as the Penguin opened fire on them and the Archer fired arrows hovering from a glider.

CRACK! Batman tossed a batarang that knocked the arrow caster out of the air as Robin found his senses and kick boxed the Penguin's rifle umbrella out of his hand.

SMASH! A left uppercut and blow to the stomach and the smoking bird was down for the count.  
There was still several more to go as Batgirl tore down the street in her cycle trying to do what she could. She caught a glimpse of something over her head as Selina Kyle, the original Catwoman, vaulted on a traffic pole and landed on the cycle with her.

"We finally meet!" She clawed the dynamic damsel and forced her to ditch the sliding cycle. Batgirl rolled, leapt to her feet and stood ready as the feline villainess kicked, jabbed and ripped at her hair.

"I'm the only girl in the Batman's life." The feline fury knocked her down. "And you're just a mouse with wings!"

"Appearances are decieving!" Batgirl leapt over her opponent's head and kicked back. She hoped this Catwoman was as easy to fight as the African-American imposter who had masqueraded as her.

SMACK! The Catwoman stumbled backward, danced over a bench and landed on her feet. Locking Batgirl's neck in her legs, she pile-drived her into the asphalt. A bit dazed by the move, Batgirl rolled, jumped to her feet and sent as many karate kicks as she could send. The Catwoman's mask flew off as she lashed out.

"Care to be cat-apulted into space?" She dove at Batgirl only to be caught and tossed through the open window of the pet store. Catwoman gasped and looked up to the eyes of a Rottweiler.  
With Bookworm and Egghead out of the way, Batman knocked the Riddler out of the air with his last batarang. The Joker and Penguin were being tied to each other as the Green Goblin fired his missiles at the street. Dodging the explosions, the caped crusader grabbed his grappling hook and tossed it as he held on to the rope.

"What the?" The Goblin felt his craft suddenly kick into burning more fuel as if it was carrying more weight. Looking back, he realized he was hauling the dark knight detective behind him over the streets.

"Oh yeah!" He hit the speed button as his gestures and balance guided the glider closer toward the buildings. Batman ran along the surface of them as pulled himself closer and closer to the demon responsible for the terror. His eyes rounded as he saw the glider dip for a warehouse as the shot in through a window.

SPLAT! The Goblin began laughing sadistically after hearing the sound of something hit the walls. Shooting out of the warehouse through another window, he reached for another pumpkin bomb as he shot out and zoomed high over the industrial section of the city. Why was his glider still so sluggish?

"Give it up, Goblin!" Batman was on his back after holding on to the bottom. "You're finished!"

"Am I!" They both saw the huge letters of Osborn Chemicals rearing up. Screaming like a banshee, the glider nicked the surface, spun and smashed into a catwalk.

BOOM! The explosion took out the glider as the catwalk shattered from the force of it. As the two foes landed on it, it creaked, groaned and began falling off the wall. Jason Pryde's eyes went wild under his mask as he clawed for something to hold him. He began sliding on the angling twisted metal as he looked down to the raw sewage that Norman Osborn dumped in Gotham River then up to Batman hanging upside down like a trapeze artist.

"Pryde, give me your hand!" He reached out. "A life in prison is better than no life at all!"

"Do you think I'm crazy!" Pryde began laughing in the face of death. "And give you the credit of saving my life?"

"You can't hold on!" Batman pleaded. "Drop the stuff you stole! It's pulling you down! Think of your wife!" Pryde began laughing his psychotic Green Goblin laugh. Batman stared at the sight of him as the prince of terror suddenly went serious.

"I already lost her." He let go of the groaning twisted catwalk with dire seriousness as if he had already accepted his fate. He fell straight down into the murky green water with an unceremonial splash and vanished under the surface. Batman stared at the water for a second waiting for his body to pop up from below then heard the catwalk bending under him. His head then looked up next to the police helicopter lowering him a line and he decided to save his own life from the toxic lake.

PART TEN  
Workmen and city employees were cleaning up the war torn streets of Gotham City in the aftermath of yesterday's riot. While glass men became rich restoring Commissioner Gordon's windows, Bruce Wayne and Barbara Gordon were in the office as Monica Pryde was receiving a light sentence for her negligible participation in her husband's would-be criminal empire.

"Mr. Wayne," She glanced from him to Barbara and back again. "Thank you for giving me a second chance. I loved Jason very much, but... I never knew what he was capable of."

"That's okay." The philanthropist grinned toward her as Gordon, his daughter and Chief O'Hara looked on. "Under the Wayne Foundation, we can help you get your life on track freed of any criminal entanglements. I'm just very sorry that your husband could not be helped."

"Osborn Chemicals searched the area for his body, but I'm afraid no trace of him was found." O'Hara spoke up. "The current must have washed him out to sea."

"Must have." Barbara agreed as Monica became doubtful.

"I don't know." She continued. "Jason was a nut for creating contingencies. Like on stage, he had to be ready for anything."

"Commissioner," Bonnie the receptionist carried in a large square box. "This was just delivered by registered messenger."

"It was?" Gordon looked at it as she headed back out. "No return address on it." He poked his finger under on of the flaps. Ripping it open, he heard a loud popping noise as smoke exploded from out of it. Not large enough to destroy anything, it just obscured the room a second and cleared as the sound of laughing filled the room. As the smoke cleared, the exploded box revealed a dirty white skull. It was a real one, not one of those fake plastic models. It was bobbing lightly on a special base with a continuous recording coming from it. It just kept laughing and mocking everyone silently staring at it...

END


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